Welcome back. Before Christmas, the Labour leader had intended to use the initial days back after the parliamentary break to highlight ministers' efforts to reduce the cost of living. He set out this argument yesterday in an article where he referenced measures including plans to cut energy bills. However, Starmer’s cost of living media push has been blown out of the news agenda by the former US president, and his entirely different strategy to ensuring supporters get access to cheap energy.
No one in British political life appears very keen on adopting the Trump approach – which is likely a positive development for other nations.
But there is a heated discussion ongoing about what the UK government should be willing to say about the American action to abduct Nicolás Maduro, and install a successor with someone anticipated to be more compliant with American interests, particularly in regarding the nation's petroleum sector.
The Prime Minister has declined to censure the American intervention, and the government has dodged questions about whether or not it considered what happened as legal. Last night, European Union members except one nation issued a collective declaration which, while not explicitly condemning, did stress the value of international law, and by inference accuse Trump of disregarding it. It said:
EU members urge restraint and restraint by all actors, to avoid escalation and to ensure a peaceful solution to the situation.
The Union recalls that, under all circumstances, the tenets of the rules-based order and the United Nations charter must be upheld. Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have a particular responsibility to defend those standards, as a pillar of the international security architecture.
Mike Tapp, was conducting an interview round this morning and, when asked if Starmer was refusing to say the Venezuelan leader's removal broke global statutes because he was worried of upsetting Trump, the minister responded:
Absolutely not. The British government is, and will, be in conversations with the Americans. And it’s for the Americans to lay out the juridical rationale for the steps that they’ve undertaken. And we’re also talking with key partners looking at the juridical dimension of this.
But last night, in an appearance on the BBC, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee (and a ex- shadow attorney general), said she was deeply worried about the way Trump seems to think, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the Chinese president, that he could do what he wanted in his area of control.
Questioned about Starmer refusing to say that Trump was in violation of global rules, Thornberry said, because the PM was in office, he had to balance “multiple factors”. But she was in a separate situation because she was not a government member, she said. She added:
In the end there is no escaping the fact. This is not a legal action.
[Starmer] may well want to hear what the justification is from the American government. I can state before everyone and say I literally think of anything that could be a proper justification.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: John Swinney, gives a speech in Glasgow. The Scottish opposition leader, and Scottish Conservative leader, are also giving speeches, at 10.30am and lunchtime respectively. All the leaders are gearing up to the Holyrood elections in May.
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a tour in Berkshire where he is scheduled to make comments to the press.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a press briefing.
2.30pm: The home secretary, takes queries in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: The foreign secretary, is anticipated to give a statement to MPs about the ongoing situation.
